If you are

stopping now, then stop.

If you are seeking a time when

you finish, then you will

never finish.

Yuanwu

Calmness

in quietude is not

real calm; when you can be calm

in the midst of activity, this is the true

state of nature. Happiness in comfort is

not real happiness; when you can be

happy in the midst of hardship,

then you see the true

potential of the

mind.

Huanchu Daoren

Forget your figuring.

Forget yourself. Listen to your Friend.

When you become totally obedient

to that one, you’ll

be free.

Rumi

This

reminds me of

another statement Dogen Zenji

made when he returned from China,

‘I have returned empty-handed, without the

smallest bit of Buddha Dharma.’ ‘Empty-handed.’

When you’ve got nothing in your hands, they are free

to be used in the best way. And, ‘without the smallest

bit of Buddha Dharma.’ In other words, everything

is the Buddha Dharma. It’s not a matter of

having it or not. This very life, as it is,

is nothing but the Buddha

Dharma itself.

Taizan Maezumi Roshi

When it’s over,

I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my

life something particular, and real. I don’t want to find

myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply

having visited this

world.

Mary Oliver